The Electric Networks of Armenia (EEG) does not accept accusations of inefficient management. The leaders of the National Electric Power Company say that most of the power outages that have become regular in recent months are beyond their responsibility, more than 34 percent of the accidents. according to themare due to construction works.
Due to power outages, at the beginning of August in Yerevan, the famous Russian ballet performance “Chopiniana” failed, about 10 days after that, the “Noa”-“Ruzhomberok” European football match at the Abovyan stadium was interrupted. Before that, last year, the hall was dark during the government session.
The managers of the ENES say that the theater employees were advised several times to change one of the transformers in the building, but it was ignored. Then they received a letter signed by the director of the theater. – “Asking to provide a new theater transformer as part of our company’s charity program, because they have financial problems and cannot do it with their own funds.”
According to HEC, the power outage of Abovyan stadium was also not their fault. The heads of the National Electric Power Company announced that 3 months before the incident, the federation asked them to turn off one of their 2 transformers, they said that one is enough.
And last year, when the lights were turned off during the government session, the prime minister reprimanded the government members for constantly talking about the quality of electricity and not being consistent. According to Karen Darbinyan, the chairman of the board of directors of ENE, the working group concluded that the cause of the disconnection was the work on the high-voltage lines, which is beyond the responsibility of ENE.
The other reason, according to HEC, is the large-scale constructions. In the last 3 years, 68,000 new subscribers have been added in Yerevan, and this number will reach 77,000 by the end of the year.
“HPP is not the only link that is affected by power outages,” they say and continue that other power generating stations, high-voltage networks, and the own economies of various structures are failing as well. Nevertheless, they admit that there are accidents in the HEP, but they emphasize that they accepted the distribution network with 80 percent wear and tear.
In 2015, the “Tashir Group” owned by the Russian-based businessman Samvel Karapetyan took over the management of the HEP for 25 years. Already from 2016 to this August 1, according to the heads of the National Energy Agency, the volume of investments is 610 million dollars, a total of 680 million dollars.
“The funds that should have been directed to the modernization of additional networks have been directed more to new connections, because as mentioned, we have an upper limit that the volume of our investments will not have any significant impact on the tariffs,” said the representative of ENE.
“In our estimation, there are a lot of shortened expenses and purchases.” Ioannisyan
Daniel Ioannisyan, program coordinator of the “Union of Conscious Citizens” NGO, says that repeated power outages have also forced them to investigate whether there is corruption in the National Electric Power Company.
“In our estimation, there are a lot of unnecessary expenses and purchases that are made from the organizations affiliated with the management or the owner of the HEP. Those high-priced costs are included in the tariff. These are the initial data that are our starting point for conducting studies, in case of more detailed information, we can present demands to the Public Services Regulatory Commission,” said Ioannisyan.
The managers of HETC, which has more than 1 million subscribers, retort: ​​losses decreased in 2014-2015. annual revenue of more than 30 million dollars was saved, which, according to them, allows not to raise the tariff.
They plan to renew cables and build and rebuild substations throughout the country. They assure that 98 percent reliability will be ensured, the outages will not be even 2 percent. And in 10 days they start to completely change the cables of the center.
